Powered by NVIDIA's Omniverse, Lowe's digital
twin showcases a future in which AI, 3D visualization and augmented
reality collaboration are part of retail associates' daily
lives
MOORESVILLE, N.C., Sept. 20,
2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Building upon its history
of innovation, Lowe's today unveiled the home improvement retail
industry's first interactive store digital twin at NVIDIA GTC.
Leveraging NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise, this digital twin showcases
a future in which store associates can visualize and interact with
nearly all of a store's digital data, giving them
superpowers to optimize operations and localize plans to
better serve customer needs. Also, in the coming weeks, Lowe's will
open up part of its virtual 3D product catalog – used to populate
its digital twin – to Omniverse users, to help them create new
possibilities in their applications for retail and beyond.
"We're thrilled to pioneer retail digital twins and elevate
experiences for both our associates and customers," said Seemantini
Godbole, Lowe's executive vice president, chief digital and
information officer. "Through emerging technology, we are always
imagining and testing ways to improve store operations and remove
friction for our customers."
Built by its Lowe's Innovation Labs team, Lowe's digital twin is
currently live in two stores. The digital twin is a completely
virtual replica of a physical home improvement store, created in
NVIDIA's Omniverse environment. It fuses spatial data with other
Lowe's data, including product location and historical order
information, and pulls all of these sources together into a visual
package that can be accessed on a range of devices. From desktop
computers to Magic Leap 2 augmented reality (AR) headsets, this
interactivity opens up numerous possibilities for Lowe's
associates.
"AI and digital twins are reinventing the retail experience for
associates and customers, in person and online," said Jensen Huang,
founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Lowe's, with Omniverse and AI, is at
the forefront of shaping this future retail experience."
A few of the areas that Lowe's is currently exploring with its
digital twin include:
- AR Reset and Restocking Support: Wearing a Magic Leap 2
AR headset, Lowe's associates can see a hologram of the digital
twin overlaid atop the physical store in augmented reality. This
can help an associate compare what a store shelf should look
like versus what it actually looks like, and make sure it's
stocked with the right products in the right configurations.
- AR "X-Ray Vision": Another exploratory use case is
associate "X-ray vision," the ability to gather and view
information on obscured items on hard-to-reach shelves. For
example, under normal circumstances, an associate might need to
climb a ladder to gather information on a cardboard-enclosed
product held in a store's top stock. With an AR headset and the
digital twin, the associate could look up at a partially obscured
cardboard box from ground level, and, thanks to computer vision and
Lowe's inventory application programming interfaces (APIs),
determine and view its contents via an AR overlay.
- AR Collaboration: With access to a Magic Leap 2 AR
headset, store associates can do more than just view the digital
twin – they can also update it and collaborate with centralized
store planners in new ways. If a store associate notices an
improvement that could be made to a proposed planogram for their
store, they could notate that on the digital twin with an AR
"sticky note."
- Store Visualization and Optimization: Just as e-commerce
sites gather analytics to optimize the customer shopping experience
online, the digital twin enables new ways of viewing sales
performance and customer traffic data to optimize the in-store
experience using 3D heatmaps and distance measurements of items
frequently bought together.
Using historical order and product location data, Lowe's can also
leverage Omniverse and Lowe's Innovation Labs-created AI avatars to
simulate how far customers or associates might need to walk to pick
up items often bought together. Associates can also test changes to
product placements within Omniverse to find optimal placements for
products to enhance customer and associate experiences.
In the future, Lowe's associates will be able to connect to both
traditional and specially developed Omniverse streaming data APIs
and intelligent internet of things (IoT) sensors, bringing more
data into the store digital twin and creating even more
possibilities.
As part of today's news, Lowe's announced that it will make a
selection of photorealistic 3D product assets available to
Omniverse developers in the coming weeks – the same assets that are
used to populate its digital twin. Just as it has supported
builders of the real world for more than 100 years, Lowe's wants to
help builders of virtual and augmented worlds create new
possibilities with 3D representations of the items it sells.
Developers will be able to access the Lowe's Open Builder library
in an upcoming Omniverse update.
From being one of the first retailers to introduce virtual
reality to mainstream shoppers back in 2014, to pioneering the
use of in-store retail robotics, Lowe's regularly invests in
emerging technology to make the home improvement experience simpler
and more intuitive. Earlier this year, Lowe's released an intuitive
LiDAR-based experience called Measure Your Space, which helps
customers scan, measure and estimate their projects through the
Lowe's app.
Lowe's new Tech Hub in Charlotte's South End, which officially opens
next month, focuses on technology solutions like these that
accelerate Lowe's commitment to becoming a best-in-class,
omnichannel retailer. "As Lowe's continues to shape the future of
home improvement retail, the Tech Hub nurtures our development of
solutions to complex problems," said Godbole. "Lowe's digital twin
is a profound example of how our teams are building this
future."
About Lowe's
Lowe's Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) is a
FORTUNE® 50 home improvement company serving
approximately 19 million customer transactions a week in
the United States and Canada. With fiscal year 2021 sales of over
$96 billion, Lowe's and its related
businesses operate or service nearly 2,200 home improvement and
hardware stores and employ over 300,000 associates. Based in
Mooresville, N.C., Lowe's supports
the communities it serves through programs focused on creating
safe, affordable housing and helping to develop the next generation
of skilled trade experts. For more information, visit
Lowes.com.
Contact: Kyle Byrnes
Lowe's Companies, Inc.
860.874.4396
kyle.byrnes@lowes.com
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SOURCE Lowe's Companies, Inc.